Background Information
(i.e. Information you don't need to know!)
Once upon a time there was a fire. It started as a small fire inside a little girl. Like the girl it grew quickly, but it grew quicker than the girl. It curled out of her chest, licking the walls of the megamall. It burned off her clothes as it spread through bedding departments and book stores. It bit the heels of the customers, crawled up their legs and melted their skin. The fire quickly consumed the concrete floors and walls like magma, melting it down until it absorbed the very essence of the concrete. The fire grew and devoured the water the firemen shot at it. It waved as if the water was a celebration of its creation.
It grew and grew until there was nothing left to eat. And then the fire turned to an ash that rained from the sky. All that was left was a large, hard pool of plastic, the remains of what the fire couldn’t turn to dust, and two naked children playing on top of it. One was a boy, whose hair and eyebrows had been burned completely, but otherwise seemed unharmed aside from a red, blistering burn on his hand that stretched to his upper arm. The other was the girl, the girl with the fire. Blood the colour of the richest red wine leaked from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. She played with the boy as if she didn’t notice the blood crawling across her skin.
The girl’s parents died in the fire. Her mother held her hand in the mall and her mother’s hand melted onto hers. The boy’s parents were at home because the girl’s parents took them both out shopping together. The boy’s father was the girl’s godfather, and his parents took her in without hesitance or question. They raised her as their own flesh and blood.
The boy and the girl are Dmitri and Ellie. It does not matter who they were before.
Ellie is a gateway. When she gets tired and grows weak, Sin Demons can pass through her to possess another body. She only was only weak once, and Dmitri made sure she was never weak again. Dmitri was one of the demons that passed through her on that day. He possessed her best friend and he closed the gate. He didn’t close the gate because he cared for her, for her family, or for the strangers parading through the mall. He closed the gate because he knew the human bodies would not be able to survive the fire, and that only this body had so far gone unharmed and would likely survive it, so he closed the gate so another, stronger demon wouldn’t force him out.
To close Ellie’s gate, Dmitri drove his hand into Ellie’s chest and blocked the opening with his own form. This adhering of skin, however temporary, bonded Ellie and Dmitri together. They feel the same things, their moods affect each other, and they feed off of each other’s energies. Dmitri is human enough. If his body dies, his essence travels back to hell. Ellie is completely human aside from the gateway throbbing in her chest.
Dmitri believes that Ellie’s gateway is The Gate, the gateway in which Satan came move Hell onto Earth. Each of the Nine Hells has a hole inside of them. These holes are not large enough for any demon or damned soul to crawl through, they are only large enough for one to look through. However, each level constantly shifts and tilts, meaning that there is a chance for all of the holes to align so Satan can see life on Earth, life on God’s purgatory. When Satan sees the blue of the sky and the clay of the earth, He can break free of his icy tome and break through the small holes to reach the Earth. When this happens, all demons and damned souls are free to follow him.
And even though Dmitri believes it will happen, he doesn’t want it to happen.
Dmitri is a Lust Demon. He gains energy from seducing and sexually gratifying partners. Because of this, he spent most of his childhood and preteens sick in bed because he was not able to gratify partners. He’s indifferent to gender and gender roles, although he has a certain fondness for transmen. He’s carefree and rarely serious. He’s hopelessly loyal, but he tries not to show it. He likes pushing Ellie’s buttons, but he also goes out of his way to make her life easier, often without telling her.
Dmitri’s Song: The Littlest Birds by The Be Good Tanyas
Ellie is a human gateway. She gains energy from coffee, like normal people, and good grades, like overachievers. She’s more serious than Dmitri because she believes she has a future and wants to create a life for herself. She has few friends because Dmitri generally seduces them away, making long lasting friendships difficult. Despite these frustrations, Ellie can be fun to be with and makes a lot of sarcastic remarks and jokes at her and Dmitri’s expense, but only when she’s not buried under her schoolwork.
Ellie’s Song: The Beat Stuff by Hannah Georgas
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